When I was posting my new entry today,(see below), I realized that this connection was finally fast enough to post a few of the pictures I promised you from our recent trip to Scandinavia, St. Petersburg, and Tallinn. If you want the narrative for these, please see my previous post earlier in June.
Copenhagen - first port on the second cruise. Has many fine old buildings, such as this cathedral:

At the scenic inner harbor area called Nyhavn we took a canal boat tour:


As usual, there were lots of big statues and buildings in the city center:

And on the stock exchange building, a very twisty spire:


Stockholm- There is a 24,000 island archipeligo which we went through to get to Stockholm, and again when leaving. Many of the islands have summer homes on them:

We took the Hop On-Hop Off boat to get around because the main part of Stockholm is on 14 big islands. Here are a few buildings as seen from the water:


We attended the changing of the guard ceremony at the palace:


Rosenborg Palace has a nice park which we walked through on our way back to the ship. Here is the front of the palace:


St. Petersburg - the Winter Palace is now called The Hermitage and is a world class art gallery. Here is a shot taken across the river:

And here is a closeup of the front:

The inside architecture is fabulous:

This is one of the ceilings:

The throne room:

One of the reception halls:

A domed ceiling:

One of the display rooms:

Art gallery:

The church of the Spilled Blood had the most spectacular facade and onion domes:

St. Isaics Cathedral has the 3rd largest dome in Europe:

Amber is one of the biggest selling items, apparently, since it is sold everywhere, but quite expensive:

Here we all are in front of a statue of Peter the Great - Carol, Rick, Denice, Elaine and Mary. Thanks Byron for taking this picture:

Smolensky Cathedral was quite beautiful, both inside and out:

Beautiful flowers were planted all over the city:

The Kazan Cathedral was designed to resemble St. Peters in Rome:

Our guide took us to a local indoor market:

They were selling caviar at the market:

Peterhof was about a 30 minute hydrofoil ride outside of the city, and spectacular:

There were lots of fountains on the extensive grounds. This was one of them:

Flowers and fountains:

One of the buildings for ladies in waiting:

The Grand Staircase Fountains:

People in period costume on the grounds:

Grand Staircase Fountain and view towards Gulf of Finland:

No pictures were allowed inside Peterhof, but at Catherine's Palace we took pictures both inside and out:





The most famous room in this palace is the Amber Room, because it is made entirely out of small pieces of amber:

After our tour we went to a typical Russian restaurant for lunch. Here are some shots of the interior:

We ate in a curtained off area in the middle:


I am out of time now, so next time I will post some pictures of Tallinn and Gothenburg.